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“Should we kill her?” one of the gunmen asked.
“No.” Jeremiah shook his head. “Bring her alive. She needs to learn what happens when you defy God.”
49
The clouds were thick overhead, and I could barely see anything in the dark. The floodlights around the outside of the house were the only illumination as Jeremiah and his cronies launched backward through the wall in an explosion of shattered glass and splintered wood. But after that, the fight was hidden on the opposite side of the house. All I could hear was the destruction: crumbling brick, snapping wood...and gunfire.
Guns couldn’t bring Zane down. It wasn’t the bullets that concerned me. What worried me was how long it had been. I’d watched Zane annihilate a room of eight people within two minutes. Humans weren’t difficult to kill.
If Jeremiah was truly a match for him...if Jeremiah wasstrongerthan him...I didn’t know what the hell I’d do.
I gripped my shotgun closer, my heart pounding faster as the minutes dragged on. I hated hiding there in the dark like a coward. But I’d agreed to let Zane handle it. I had to be patient. I had to be smart about this.
The floodlight at the back of the house flicked on. I sat up, narrowing my eyes as several figures walked into the open.
Two armed gunmen, thoroughly armored, were headed straight toward me, their guns at the ready. Behind them…
Behind them was Jeremiah, dragging Zane.
It felt like cold water had been dumped over my head. My breath caught, sick disbelief gripping my stomach.
“Oh, Juniper!” Jeremiah yelled, his voice high-pitched with wild, reckless excitement. “Come out, Juni! It’s been so long!”
Shit, shit, shit! I began to creep backward into the trees, deeper into the darkness and the thick underbrush. I couldn’t assess his injuries from this distance, but there was blood smeared across Zane’s body. I had no idea how much of it was his.
Zane was one of the strongest beings I knew: the only thing I’d ever seen best him was that Archdemon, Callum. And I couldn’t believe Jeremiah was that strong. If he was…
If he was, how the hell could I take him down?
The gunmen were quickly encroaching on the trees. I couldn’t see Jeremiah now, but I could still hear him as he called out, “You can’t hide, Juniper. I know you’re here. Why don’t you come out and play? Your demon couldn’t handle the game. Why don’t you come try to help?”
There was a sudden, ragged cry of pain, and my heart lurched. Fuck, what the hell had Jeremiah done to him? I crouched low and backed up even further. The gunmen had flicked on their flashlights, attached to the front of their vests. Those guns were no joke either. Jeremiah had them well-armed and well-equipped.
The bushes weren’t thick enough to hide me from their light. I ducked behind a tree, my back pressed to the trunk, my shotgun ready. I took a few slow, deep breaths — I had to stay calm. Jeremiah was calling my name, his voice getting louder and more wild with every passing second.
“Juniper! The Deep One misses you, Juni!”
Laughter followed, sending a shudder up my back. My mouth was dry, and my cold hands shook on the gun. Behind me, the footsteps came ever closer, snapping twigs and crunching leaves as they closed in on my hiding place.
Zane would want me to run. He’d demanded it, he’d insisted that if Jeremiah somehow overpowered him, then I had togo. But I couldn’t make myself do it. The very idea was repulsive. I could run from here, but what then? I’d go back to how I’d been before: running constantly, rarely resting, always looking over my shoulder. I’d go back to clawing my way through every day, surviving only for the sake of it, with no hope, no future, no light.
Ahead of me, in the darkness, there was a blur of red. Wide eyes stared me down. The Watcher waited for my fear. It waited for me to fall apart. I had no doubt it could hear my pounding heart and taste my adrenaline rush in the air.
I’m sure it would have loved to see me run.
I clenched my jaw. I’d promised myself I was done running. Zane had come back for me when my life was on the line; I wasn’t about to abandon him, not now, not after we’d come this far.
A home isn’t just a place — sometimes a home is a person; sometimes a home is flesh and blood.
And I’d defend the home I’d found to my last breath.
Slowly, carefully, I eased my shotgun back into its holster on my back and took out my knife from its sheath. This wasn’t the time to go in guns blazing. One missed shot in the darkness and they’d know exactly where I was. I had to take out these two as quietly as I could, and then…
Then I’d figure out what to do about Jeremiah.
I huddled low to the ground, my back still against the tree, as one of the gunmen passed by my hiding place. The other one was about a hundred yards away, his back to me, shining his light into a thick tangle of bushes. The man’s head and face were protected, but there was a small gap beneath his helmet. In the dim light, I caught a flash of bare skin: the back of his neck was exposed.
I rose up, stepped behind him, and jabbed the blade sideways into his throat.
